Which country was struck by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake?

The country struck by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake was Portugal. The disaster devastated Lisbon, Portugal’s capital, on 1 November 1755, All Saints’ Day. The earthquake’s estimated magnitude ranges from about 7.7 to 9.0, and its epicenter lay offshore in the Atlantic Ocean west-southwest of Portugal.

The catastrophe was actually a sequence of disasters: intense ground shaking, a tsunami, and fires that raged through Lisbon. The sea first withdrew from the harbor before waves surged up the Tagus River roughly 40 minutes later. Candles lit for the religious holiday helped ignite fires that destroyed much of the city.

Portugal suffered the greatest losses, but the earthquake and tsunami also affected Spain, Morocco, parts of Britain and Ireland, and distant Atlantic locations. A commonly missed detail is that Lisbon was not at the epicenter; the city gave the event its name because it experienced such extraordinary destruction.

The Portuguese government’s systematic collection of reports from local parishes helped establish an early model for scientific earthquake investigation and contributed to the development of modern seismology.